One of the biggest challenges facing many web-based organizations today is the daunting task of organizing enterprise entitlement resources (e.g., technical documents, problem reporting functions, user forums, discussion databases, etc.) in a meaningful way, such that customers can easily find what they need. As an example, IBM Corporation alone has over 2.5 million Internet pages, and more technical content than any single entity, including the Pentagon.
As a result, enterprises have begun to develop advanced information search and delivery systems that not only enable customers to find what they are looking for, but also enable customers to realize value in the information they find. One example of such a system is DigitalBlue (dBlue), which is a digital interface between IBM Corporation and its customers. dBlue enables customers to search for IBM technical support information using natural language and produces results that are categorized, prioritized and personalized.
The dBlue architecture connects three important elements from the information search world—information sources, search engines, and end users—on the basis of IBM's WebSphere software platform. This is done through a series of components called the “Knowledge Builder”. Information sources are data sources such as document repositories, DB2 and Lotus Notes databases, Web sites, etc. Search engines are programs that can index content and enable searching of the indexed data. End users access dBlue through a front-end interface; the current default interface is a Web interface. The content is extracted from information sources using the Document Extractor and mapped to a unified XML Schema, then it is processed by the Document Processor and stored in the Knowledge Repository.
FIG. 1 presents a high-level block diagram of the IBM dBlue system architecture, shown generally at 100. When a user accesses the dBlue system and submits a search query, the Query Manager processes the query, along with all of the submitted parameters. The Query Builder then collects the query and parameters submitted by the user, along with information coming from the user's profile and the system configuration, to build a standard Query object. The object is submitted to the search engine through the Search Engine Adapter. The search results flow back to the user through the Search Engine Adapter, the Search Query Manager, and the View Builder. The View Builder uses the Remote Site Customization component and data to construct a personalized view of the search hit list. When the user requests a view of a specific document, the request is processed by the View Builder, which accesses the Knowledge Repository to get the document content and builds a coherent document view.
Currently, DBlue contains technical information from many different web sites, with different ways of entitling (i.e., authorizing) customers to the technical information based on the contracts the customer has purchased from the company/site. If these different web sites wanted to converge all of their technical documents onto a single entitlement repository, they would need to determine how to entitle the right customers. Currently, there is no known way to solve this problem except to not move the entitled content to a single entitlement repository, but leave the information at the disparate web sites. This is a major drawback, in that companies cannot realize the cost savings associated with having their entitled content managed from a single entitlement repository. A single entitlement repository for entitled content can also promote synergy between companies sharing the entitlement repository.
There is a need for a method, apparatus and computer program product to converge entitlement resources from a plurality of entitlement resource repositories to a single entitlement resource repository. The entitlement resources should include not only technical documents, but also problem reporting functions, user forums, discussion databases, fix delivery solutions, tools, software download delivery resources, software upgrades, etc.